SharePoint Strategy and Foundation Portal

Abel Solutions’ SharePoint Strategy and Foundation Portal solution combines the fundamental planning elements of a best-practices SharePoint deployment with a valuable deliverable—a targeted Phase 1 implementation. It addresses our customers’ desires to deploy efficiently without compromising the need for appropriate planning. The solution is targeted for organizations ready to lay the groundwork for a larger SharePoint deployment who seek to benefit from fast, visible results.This offering includes the following key elements:

SharePoint Strategy

For the SharePoint Strategy exercise, a Senior Abel Solutions Consultant will create the organization’s SharePoint Strategy Map during a facilitated session with platform stakeholders. The SharePoint Strategy Map captures the high-level scope of the Phase 1 Portal while providing a road map blueprint for successive phases.

Deployment Planning

No company would embark on a major ERP initiative without adequate planning. SharePoint deployment planning is perhaps the single most overlooked aspect of a SharePoint deployment and thus the biggest reason why SharePoint fails to return on a company’s investment in infrastructure, licensing and time. It is also possible to over-plan, relative to the stage and focus of an initial-phase deployment. As such, Abel Solutions’ SharePoint Deployment Planning for our Foundation Portal solution is scaled to fit the needs of the particular customer.

The Deployment Planning effort includes:

Infrastructure Planning:

Identify infrastructure needs for the initial solution, framed in the context of scalability for future server architecture and infrastructure requirements in subsequent phases.

Site Topology
Definition:

Define web application and site collection topology.

Taxonomy Definition:

Define global taxonomy to ensure information will be defined, structured, classified and stored accurately and consistently.

Branding and UI Planning:

Determine requirements for branding and user interface customizations so as to ensure consistent look and feel throughout the portal.

Security Planning:

Evaluate the company’s current security model and develop an appropriately robust plan for SharePoint permissions, roles, site and information access, and other security hierarchies to protect the firm’s intellectual and business assets.

Enterprise Search Planning:

Analyze the current business environment and plan for the search topology and end-user search experience, including such aspects as external search sources, search scopes, metadata properties, crawl rules, and people search.

Governance Planning:

Within the context of the business’ unique needs and goals, plan for policies, roles, responsibilities and processes that will ensure best practices governance of groups, teams, sites, projects and other SharePoint elements.

Requirements Definition:

Pinpoints the business needs that will leverage the Four Promises of SharePoint with a focus on Phase 1 requirements.

Phase 1 Portal Implementation

Once the planning phase is complete, Abel Solutions will work with the stakeholders and other members of the customers’ team to schedule the portal implementation in the most effective and least disruptive manner possible. Stages of the Portal Implementation include: